The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1887-12-15
for a score of years. After while there

for a score of years. After while there |
will be ''corner" in the wheat market, |
and men who had a contempt for petty |
theft will burglarize the wheat bin of a |
nation and commit larceny upon the |
American corn crib. And some of the |
men will sit in churches and in reforma- |
tory institutions trying to strain out the |
small gnats of scoundrelism, while in |
their grain elevators and their storehouses |
they are fattening huge camels, which |
they expect after awhile to swallow So |
ciety has to be entirely reconstructed on |
this subject. We are to find that sin is
inexcusable in proportion as it is great.
know in our time the tendency is to
charge religious frauds against good men.
They say: "Oh, what a class of frauds
you have in the church of God in this
day." and when an elder of church, or
a deacon, or minister of the Gospel, or
superintendent of Sabbath school
turns out defaulter, what display heads
there are in many of the newspapers.
Great primer type. Five line plea: can
other Saint Absconded, Clerical Scoun-
drelism," 'sReligion at a DISCOUNT
''Shame on the Churches, while there are
thousand scoundrels outside the church
to where there is one inside the church,
and the misbehavior of those who never
see the inside of church is SO great it is
enough to tempt a man to become a
Christian to get out of their company.
But in all circles, religious or irreEgious,
the tendency is to excuse sin in proper
ton as it is mammoth. Even John Mil
ton in his Paradise Lost, while he
condemns Satan, gives such grand de-
scription of him you have hard work to
suppress your admiration. Oh, this
straining out of small sins like gnats, and
this gulping down great iniquities like
camels.
This subject does not give the picture
of one or two persons, but is a gallery in
which thousands of people may see their
likeness. For instance, all those people
who, while they would not rob their
neighbor of a farthing, appropriate the
money and the treasure of the public.
A man has house to sell, and he tells
his customer it is worth $4,000. Next
day the assessor comes around and the
owner says it is worth $4,000. The
government of the United States took off
the tax from personal income, among
other reasons because so few people
would tell the truth, and many man
with an income Of hundreds of dollars Il
day made statements which seemed to
imply that he was about to be handed
over to the overseer of the poor. Care
full to pay their passage from Liverpool
to New York, yet smuggling in their
Saratoga trunk ten silk dresses from
Paris and half dozen watches from
koyy. &I,o
house officer on the wharf, There is
nothing in that trunk but wearing ap-
parel, and putting % gold piece in
his hand to punctuate the statelaent.
Described in the text are all those who
are particular never to break the law of
grammar, and who want ali their Ian
glage an elegant specimen of syntax,
straining out all the inaccuracies of
speech with fine sieve of literary criti-
cism, while through their conversation
go slander and innuendo, and profanity
and falsehood larger than whole cara
van of camels, wherf they might better
| fracture every law Of the language and
shock intellectual taste, and better let
every verb seek ip vain for its nomina
tive, and every noun for its government,
and every proposition lose its way in the
sentence, and adjectives and participles
and pronouns get into grand riot worthy
of the Fourth ward ON election day, than
to commit a moral inaccuracy. Better
swallow a thousand gnats than one
camel.
Such persons are also described in the
text who are very much alarmed about
the small faults of others, and have no
alarm about their own great transgres-
sions. There are In every community
and in every church watchdogs who feel
called upon to keep their eyes on others
and growl. They are full of suspicious.
They wonder if that man is not dishon-
est, if that man is not ancleap, If there is
not something wrong about the other
man. They are always the first to hear
of anything wrong. Vultures are always
the first to smell carrion. They are self
appointed detectives. 1 lay this down as
a rule without any exception, that those
people who have the most faults them
selves are the most merciless in their
watching of others. From scalp of head
to sole of foot they are full of jealousies
and hypercriticisms. They spend their
life In hunting for muskrats and mud
turtles, instead of hunting for Rocky
Mountain eagles, always for something
mean instead of something grand. They
look at their neighbors' imperfections
through a microscope, and look at their
own imperfections through telescope
upside down. Twenty faults of their
own do not hurt them SO much as one
fault of somebody else. Their neighbors'
imperfections are like gnats and they
strain them out; their own imperfections
are like camels and they swallow them.
But lest some might think they escape
the scrutiny of the text, have to tell you
that we all come under the divine satire
when we make the question of time more
prominent than the question of eternity.
Come now, let us all go into the con-
fessional. Are not ali tempted to make
the question. Where shall I live nowP
greater than the question, Where shall
live forever? How shall get more dol
lars here2 greater than the question,
How shall lay up treasures in, heaveni
the question, How shall I pay my debts
to man? greater than the question, How
shall meet my obligations to God? the
question, How shall gain the worldi
greater than the question, What if lose
my soulp the question, Why did God let
sin come into the world? greater than the
question, How shall I get it extirpated
from my nature? the question, What
shall do with the twenty, or forty, OF
seventy years Of my sublunar existencei
greater than the question, What shall
do with the millions of cycles of my post.
terrestrial existence? Time, how small II
is! Eternity, how vast it is! The former
| - l. Il. l.
latter than a gnat is insignificant wher
compared with a camel. We lodged the
text. We said, THAT doesn't mean me
and that doesn't mean me-" and with 6
ruinous benevolence we are giving thu
whole sermon away.
But lot us all surrender to the charge
What an ado about things here! What
poor preparation for great eternity! A!
though a minnew were larger than {
behemoth, as though swallow tool
wider circuit than an albafroSs as tho1pl